Ahrefs

Top YouTube Searches

By Joshua Hardwick

Former Head of Content at Ahrefs

Updated: January 1, 20218 min read

107 Organic traffic139 Linking websitesArticle performance data from Ahrefs

Contents

Top 100 YouTube searches in the US
Top 100 YouTube search queries globally

Have you ever wondered what people search for most on YouTube?

Today, I’m excited to share with you some brand new data:

Top 100 YouTube searches (US): a list of the most popular YouTube searches in the US.
Top 100 YouTube searches (Worldwide): the same data but filtered to show searches outside of the United States too. And with global search volumes.

But first things first, a tip for those doing YouTube keyword research:

You can find YouTube search volumes for 371 million keywords with Ahrefs’ Keyword Explorer.

Sidenote

Do you want to know what people search for the most on Google? Here are the top Google searches.

Now, without further ado, let’s find out just how popular cat videos really are.

Top 100 YouTube searches in the US

#	Keyword	Search Volume
1	pewdiepie	4,571,398
2	asmr	4,036,274
3	music	3,347,560
4	markiplier	2,969,267
5	old town road	2,501,430
6	billie eilish	2,355,459
7	pewdiepie vs t series	2,179,597
8	fortnite	2,010,834
9	david dobrik	2,006,263
10	jacksepticeye	1,956,498
11	joe rogan	1,922,619
12	james charles	1,852,057
13	baby shark	1,843,336
14	bts	1,648,962
15	dantdm	1,648,379
16	snl	1,569,452
17	game grumps	1,399,182
18	cnn	1,383,248
19	wwe	1,351,784
20	lofi	1,317,905
21	minecraft	1,294,920
22	shane dawson	1,218,344
23	fox news	1,194,207
24	msnbc	1,162,435
25	mrbeast	1,155,660
26	fgteev	1,132,139
27	ssundee	1,130,356
28	lofi hip hop	1,115,248
29	t series	1,106,948
30	gacha life	1,088,275
31	stephen colbert	1,071,076
32	flamingo	1,053,715
33	ariana grande	1,045,804
34	nightcore	992,960
35	songs	945,140
36	jake paul	938,932
37	lazarbeam	921,944
38	tyt	905,280
39	eminem	901,503
40	taylor swift	894,841
41	post malone	888,713
42	vanossgaming	888,357
43	memes	871,174
44	jeffree star	861,302
45	trump	853,570
46	study music	840,359
47	cardi b	833,307
48	juice wrld	809,349
49	game of thrones	807,388
50	espn	801,990
51	unspeakable	794,403
52	john oliver	784,305
53	logan paul	775,211
54	nba youngboy	770,299
55	try not to laugh	766,004
56	blackpink	761,919
57	coryxkenshin	759,131
58	avengers endgame	752,274
59	roblox	735,723
60	andrew yang	732,854
61	dude perfect	730,066
62	last week tonight	726,970
63	peppa pig	725,073
64	mr beast	715,461
65	chad wild clay	708,328
66	dunkey	706,010
67	ufc	699,040
68	game theory	693,334
69	nfl	688,779
70	jre	687,693
71	buzzfeed unsolved	682,198
72	popularmmos	679,442
73	drake	679,361
74	borderlands 3	670,494
75	ninja	670,413
76	colbert	669,343
77	sml	662,973
78	tik tok	658,256
79	itsfunneh	652,226
80	undisputed	651,707
81	ben shapiro	650,475
82	seth meyers	650,378
83	rachel maddow	648,303
84	projared	641,203
85	pokemon sword and shield	640,846
86	jeffy	640,603
87	trevor noah	640,279
88	critical role	637,750
89	trisha paytas	636,567
90	blippi	634,897
91	gmm	623,242
92	first take	622,691
93	nintendo	620,470
94	queen	619,303
95	sssniperwolf	618,963
96	ryans toy review	611,976
97	tati	604,341
98	funny videos	601,083
99	sis vs bro	599,916
100	jenna marbles	598,684

It’s clear right away that searches for songs and musicians dominate this list.

In fact, 20% of the top 100 searches are music related.

Billie Eilish appears to be the most popular artist on the list with over two million monthly searches. Ariana Grande, Eminem, and Taylor Swift also make it into the top 40 with almost three million combined searches.

And this song is proving pretty popular, with over 2.5M monthly searches:

But it’s not all about music…

You’ll notice that 5 of the top 10 searches are “branded” searches—i.e., folks searching for channel names or YouTube personalities. This is a trend that continues beyond the top 10, with 52% of the top 100 searches being for specific YouTube personalities and channels.

Here are the top 10 most popular YouTube channels and “celebrities” according to our data:

#	Keyword	Search Volume
1	pewdiepie	4,571,398
2	markiplier	2,969,267
3	pewdiepie vs t series	2,179,597
4	david dobrik	2,006,263
5	jacksepticeye	1,956,498
6	joe rogan	1,922,619
7	james charles	1,852,057
8	dantdm	1,648,379
9	snl	1,569,452
10	game grumps	1,399,182

These searches get a combined 22.7 MILLION searches per month in the US.

Interestingly, quite a few of these folks are gaming vloggers (or gaming vloggers turned YouTube personalities, like PewDiePie), which brings us neatly onto what appears to be the next most popular genre of videos on YouTube: gaming videos.

Here are all the searches that somehow relate to gaming (and their respective search volumes):

#	Keyword	Search Volume
1	pewdiepie	4,571,398
2	markiplier	2,969,267
3	fortnite	2,010,834
4	jacksepticeye	1,956,498
5	dantdm	1,648,379
6	game grumps	1,399,182
7	minecraft	1,294,920
8	fgteev	1,132,139
9	ssundee	1,130,356
10	vanossgaming	888,357
11	unspeakable	794,403
12	dunkey	706,010
13	game theory	693,334
14	popularmmos	679,442
15	borderlands 3	670,494
16	ninja	670,413
17	pokemon sword and shield	640,846
18	nintendo	620,470

Having looked through some of those channels myself, live gaming videos—aka, “let’s plays”—seem very popular. Not familiar with such videos? Here’s one of the most popular let’s plays from one of the most popular YouTubers on our list—jacksepticeye:

Speaking of live videos, they're so popular that YouTube now has a dedicated channel for live streams.

It’s not just live TV that people like watching on YouTube either: John Oliver, Stephen Colbert, and many other US TV personalities also get millions of searches per month.

So, to summarize, people flock to YouTube in search of entertainment.

Hardly surprising, right? But what is surprising is this:

None of the top 100 YouTube searches in the US have anything to do with cats. That’s a shame because I love cats. ;)

Now let’s see how these US stats compare to the Worldwide stats.

Top 100 YouTube search queries globally

#	Keyword	Search Volume
1	bts	16,723,304
2	pewdiepie	16,495,659
3	asmr	14,655,088
4	billie eilish	13,801,247
5	baby shark	12,110,100
6	old town road	10,456,524
7	music	10,232,134
8	badabun	10,188,997
9	blackpink	9,580,131
10	fortnite	9,117,342
11	minecraft	8,540,800
12	pewdiepie vs t series	8,252,156
13	peliculas completas en español	8,223,530
14	senorita	8,203,240
15	ariana grande	7,599,148
16	alan walker	7,011,862
17	tik tok	6,918,634
18	musica	6,776,562
19	wwe	6,720,364
20	calma	6,570,493
21	bad bunny	6,462,239
22	eminem	6,454,801
23	queen	6,443,123
24	ed sheeran	6,098,093
25	peppa pig	6,011,992
26	despacito	5,694,159
27	la rosa de guadalupe	5,653,795
28	taki taki	5,437,988
29	enes batur	5,424,066
30	michael jackson	5,079,319
31	songs	5,040,082
32	t series	4,948,708
33	maluma	4,858,299
34	bad guy	4,806,490
35	markiplier	4,770,407
36	taylor swift	4,709,317
37	ozuna	4,665,643
38	nightcore	4,622,362
39	paulo londra	4,606,009
40	karaoke	4,542,724
41	james charles	4,530,707
42	youtube	4,472,373
43	imagine dragons	4,471,413
44	dance monkey	4,468,853
45	twice	4,388,230
46	roblox	4,383,944
47	free fire	4,368,431
48	gacha life	4,360,138
49	post malone	4,268,859
50	justin bieber	4,153,259
51	felipe neto	4,129,776
52	bruno mars	4,125,165
53	7 rings	4,071,507
54	china	4,007,730
55	doraemon	3,919,814
56	anuel	3,895,705
57	kill this love	3,841,537
58	jacksepticeye	3,777,353
59	maroon 5	3,771,017
60	joe rogan	3,763,617
61	game of thrones	3,762,771
62	marshmello	3,739,179
63	linkin park	3,735,715
64	david dobrik	3,707,115
65	bohemian rhapsody	3,702,925
66	squeezie	3,639,897
67	lady gaga	3,636,055
68	aaj tak live	3,576,911
69	5 minute crafts	3,542,329
70	cardi b	3,541,762
71	geo news live	3,529,420
72	музыка	3,510,408
73	selena gomez	3,452,110
74	coldplay	3,438,660
75	dantdm	3,432,755
76	lofi	3,423,363
77	anuel aa	3,421,588
78	rihanna	3,399,253
79	drake	3,391,085
80	dross	3,388,714
81	los polinesios	3,378,828
82	rap	3,372,895
83	shawn mendes	3,303,856
84	cocomelon	3,286,720
85	sia	3,286,486
86	song	3,216,548
87	slime	3,215,921
88	dua lipa	3,215,514
89	con calma	3,209,614
90	funny videos	3,185,759
91	mikecrack	3,183,225
92	vegetta777	3,150,688
93	pubg	3,052,130
94	avengers endgame	3,043,992
95	movies	3,041,954
96	soolking	3,039,784
97	believer	3,008,394
98	gta 5	3,000,893
99	romeo santos	2,995,028
100	katy perry	2,993,646

It looks like people are somewhat obsessed with BTS, as monthly searches top 16M worldwide!

That’s more than 6 searches per SECOND, on average.

And they're not the only artists racking up the YouTube views. Searches for artists, bands and songs dominate our list of the top 100 worldwide YouTube searches with a staggering 58/100 searches (almost ⅔) being music‐related.

So compared to the US, it seems that the rest of the World uses YouTube far more for music.

What are they listening to besides BTS? Ed Sheeran, Bruno Mars, Coldplay, and of course,Billie Eilish.

Here's a great live performance by Billie:

There are also far fewer “branded” searches (i.e., for YouTube personalities) Worldwide. Only two of the top 10 searches are branded, which is quite a contrast to the US where half the top 10 searches are.

ASMR videos appear to be popular everywhere.

Not familiar with ASMR videos either? You’re in for a treat… #DontJudge

And how about this:

There are almost 4.5M monthly searches on YouTube for… um, Youtube. #GoFigure

Sidenote

We see a similar thing with Google searches. There are millions of searches every month for “Google” on Google. Very strange.

See more YouTube search data in Keywords Explorer

Are you doing YouTube SEO and want to know how many searches a particular query gets on YouTube every month?

Head over to Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer, enter a query and select YouTube from the dropdown.

Let’s see how many people search for “Ahrefs” each month in the US.

1,700 searches. Looks like Sam Oh is doing an excellent job growing our channel!

Lots of folks outside the US also seem to be looking for our channel, as the global volume for this query is 4,100. We’re especially popular in India.

But the fun doesn’t stop there…

We can use the Phrase match report to delve deeper and see the specific things people are searching for about the topic.